All posts tagged Lent

This post is mostly for me, so that I can remember the poem(s) I’ve read each day this Lent.  You are, of course, welcome to check out any of the poets and poems, and to comment with your own responses to them or to me.

Sunday, March 12: Hound of Heaven, by Francis Thompson

Instead of imagining the hounds of hell, this poem turns us sideways by picturing Jesus as the Hound of Heaven, hunting us, pursuing us.  I’m reminded of the last line of Psalm 23 (Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.), because that verb is much stronger than a mere follow; it’s much more like pursue or hunt.  So we have God as the Hound of Heaven, but maybe a shepherd dog rather than a hunting hound: pursuing each of us to bring us back into the safety of the sheepfold.

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears

Monday, March 13: The Hippopotamus, by T.S. Eliot

I happened on this little poem randomly, while flipping through a Kindle collection of Eliot’s poetry.  It seems cute, almost funny, all the way up to the final stanza, which is the most scathing indictment of the Church in this world that I’ve ever read.  It’s an amazing poem, setting you up for that surprise, and well worth reading… if only to visualize yourself as a hippo!

THE BROAD-BACKED hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh and blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.

Tuesday, March 14: Ashes of Life, by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I had never read Millay before.  Tuesday evening, I decided to flip through this book, which I’d downloaded as a Kindle freebie one night in a frenzy of poetry acquisition, and this short piece took my breath away.  It is one of the best descriptions of depression and acedie that I have ever read:

Love has gone and left me, and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse.
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There’s this little street and this little house.

Oh yes, I’ve lived in this little house before, for many to-morrows.

Wednesday, March 15: Renascence, by Edna St. Vincent Millay; and Farewell by Robert Nichols (written on Expeditionary Force Leave, 1915)

Farewell I read almost by accident, when my good friend Steven Perez responded to my request for poetry suggestions.  Robert Nichols was sent home from the first World War for “shell shock,” which is more commonly known now as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  He wrote many more war poems that were popular in Britain and the US.  It’s hard to not be deeply moved by this beautiful poem written on the eve of battle.

Renascence is quite different!  It is a mystical encounter with the Creator of all that is, reminiscent of the poetry of the Sufi ecstatics.  In this poem, Millay describes the glory of the Godhead, able to touch the grand skies and all parts of the world, and she describes the unmitigated pain of God, experiencing with each of us our illnesses, infirmities, and death.  The final stanza wraps up the poem with an invitation to our hearts, and a warning for the empty soul.

The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

As I read this poem, I found myself moving my lips (which I never do!).  Its rhythm is so compelling, and the subject matter just ached to be read aloud.  I may have to record a video reading this poem: it meant that much to my heart.

Thursday, March 17: St. Patrick’s Breastplate; and If, by Rudyard Kipling

Because today is St. Patrick’s Day, I intentionally went looking for versions of his well-known lorica, or breastplate prayer.  This type of prayer asks for protection for every part of oneself.  If I’m feeling at all unsettled at bedtime, I pray part of this prayer and feel instantly calmed.  There is something special about praying words that have come through so many centuries.

I happened on If on my Tumblr dashboard, at There Will be Cupcakes.  I adore the form of this poem, where only the last two lines contain the sentence; everything before that begins with an if.  And since Kipling was restricted by the social norms of his time, as well as the rhyme scheme here, I’ll hazard a guess that the intended conclusion could be said more prosaically as

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man my son! fully actuated and mature human being.

Yeah, that just doesn’t have the same ring.

Friday, March 18: The Creation, by James Weldon Johnson

And God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
“I’m lonely —
I’ll make me a world.”  

And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.  

Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said, “That’s good!”

These are the opening stanzas of James W. Johnson’s poem The Creation.  I read this at bedtime last night, and I was so energized and excited by it.  I immediately wanted to run out — yes, at 9pm, wearing my PJs — to read this poem to a Sunday school class.  It’s so full of motion and That’s good! that I knew a class of youngsters would adore this as an activity.

I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I didn’t recognize Johnson’s name off the bat.  I knew from the poem that the poet was from the southern US, and I guessed from some of the language that the poet might be black.  Then today, I went to read his biography on wikipedia.  It felt good to have my guesses confirmed, but I was overjoyed (yes, I’m strange that way) to read that Mr. Johnson had written the text of Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing, which is known as The Black National Anthem, and which is the very first hymn in an Episcopal Church hymnbook bearing the same name.  I absolutely love this song, so you get to listen to the Stanford Talisman a cappella ensemble sing it for you.  I’ll definitely be reading more from Mr. Johnson!

Saturday, March 19: God’s Grandeur, by Gerard Manley Hopkins

This poem was recommended to me by a reader (Thank you!), so I was looking forward to it.  On first reading, my reaction went roughly like this: Enh.  I shook my head, not seeing the point of working at some of the less common words and elisions.  Yeah, I get it: God’s great, and we suck.  Yawn.  But I have gone back to read this one a few times more, and each time I’ve found more to appreciate.  And I had to conclude that yes, this is a great poem.

I love this line, that uses repetition to get across the dull repetitiveness of human history

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod

With our focus on commerce, on making money at the expense of all else, we’ve turned the earth bald, we all labor (except a very few!), and everything carries the smell of our work.  It’s a dreary picture he paints of this world… and yet.

Yes, there’s an And yet!  And yet, the Holy Spirit still lives among us!  What a wonderful image:

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent  
  World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Even in prose, which might be more understandable, this image is beautiful.

Because the Holy Ghost broods over the bent world, with warm breast and with — ah! — bright wings.

It seems a pity to end this amazing statement of faith with only a period.  It needs an exclamation point, at least!  The bible opens with the Holy Spirit brooding over the waters of chaos, like the brooding of a pregnant animal, about to labor and give birth to all of Creation.  And still, the Holy Spirit broods over our world, the world we have bent and smeared and bleared and smudged, ready to give birth.

This begs the question: What is the Holy Spirit ready to give birth to?  I’ll say only this: the Spirit broods over the world, and the Spirit broods within us, ready at all times to give birth to a new person, a newly broken heart, a new life of loving-kindness.  The only question that remains is: When will we say yes?

Sunday, March 20: Sonnets to My Mother, by Heinrich Heine

I read two more sonnets on Sunday, these by one of my favorite poets from the Romantic period.  This pair of sonnets tell us a beautiful story of a young man’s pride and his mother’s boundless, unconditional love.  These poems twist a little in my heart, knowing that I too have brought my mother pain… and also knowing how completely I love my own children, who have brought the same to me.

I’ll admit that I first read these with a cynical, untrusting, crooked eye.  I was looking for an Oedipus complex, and I thought I’d found it.  On later reading I realized I was wrong.  These sonnets are lovely and loving, but are not twisted by incest.  No, this is a pure love of a son for his mother, rediscovered in adulthood after being set aside as part of the process of Becoming A Man.

Monday, March 21: Faults, by Sara Teasdale

Sara Teasdale is my favorite poet.  Period.  Each poem surprises me, because her voice could be mine.  I don’t fool myself that I could ever speak or write with her lyrical and beautiful voice; I only wish I could write like she did.

This poem is so short, I’ll include it here in its entirety:

They came to tell your faults to me,
They named them over one by one;
I laughed aloud when they were done,
I knew them all so well before,
— Oh, they were blind, too blind to see
Your faults had made me love you more.

During our courtship, I would include a poem or two in each letter I sent to the man who is now my husband.  I remember that I’d included this one, because I loved it on multiple levels.  On the one level, when we are hopelessly and romantically in love, we can find the faults of our partner to be charming and endearing.  (So often these same flaws will become frustrating and annoying when we have to live with them every day, but this doesn’t occur to us in the rush and blossom of romantic love.)  It’s so natural to see a couple in love, speaking baby talk to one another and praising one another for those endearing flaws.
On another level, it is our flaws that bring us together.  My husband and I met online almost 14 years ago.  We were both depressed at the time, only able to see our own faults and errors… but clearly able to see the loveliness of the other.  As we emerged later from this depression, we both realized that we could not hide our darkest places from each other.  We already knew those faults, especially the ones we try to keep most hidden, and it is because of our mutual vulnerability that we were able to not only fall in love but then to stand in love, which is an entirely different thing.

Tuesday, March 22: Constantly Risking Absurdity, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Ooh! The first poem of my Lent whose author is still alive!  And even better, his birthday is this week!  Happy birthday, Maestro Ferlinghetti!

This clever poem likens the poet to an acrobat in the circus, its words bringing energy and movement as we perform waaaaaay up high with the poet.  I adore the description of the poet as a little charliechaplin man, familiar with that sense of inadequacy in the face of beauty.

For he’s the super realist

                                     who must perforce perceive                    taut truth                                  before the taking of each stance or step in his supposed advance                                   toward that still higher perch where Beauty stands and waits                                      with gravity                                                 to start her death-defying leap

On reflection, I’m reminded of the role of the court fool, whose job was to speak the truth — the truth courtiers might be afraid to speak — to the king.  This is also the role of the poet — to speak truth to the world, truth the world is afraid to hear and that some fear to speak.  Truth is beauty, as Keats said, but that doesn’t mean that all truths are pretty or palatable.  Some truths are so painful to face that only clowns and poets and acrobats can tell them.

Wednesday, March 23:

I missed reading a poem on Wednesday, falling asleep before finding one.

Thursday, March 24:

I somehow missed Thursday as well, and oh! how I missed the poetry and beauty after two days!

Friday, March 25: Annunciation and Response, by Br. Tobias Stanislas Haller, BSG

This poem touched such a deep place within me that I return to it each year during Lent to read it and contemplate on it once again.  Because of the special relationship I have with this poem, it got its own post today.  I encourage you to go read it.  It’s wonderful!

She knelt beside the neatly planted rows
of cummin, dill, and mint. The clear March sky
was bright; a flock of birds flew high.
She pinched a leaf;
                    then, suddenly, she froze —
a voice had spoken. There was no one there.

Saturday, March 26:

Sunday, March 27:

Monday, March 28:

Tuesday, March 29:

Wednesday, March 30:

Thursday, March 31:

Friday, April 1:

Saturday, April 2:

Laetare Sunday, April 3:

Monday, April 4:

Tuesday, April 5:

Wednesday, April 6:

Thursday, April 7:

Friday, April 8:

Saturday, April 9:

Sunday, April 10:

Monday, April 11:

Tuesday, April 12:

Wednesday, April 13:

Thursday, April 14:

Friday, April 15:

Saturday, April 16:

Palm Sunday, April 17:

Monday in Holy Week, April 18:

Tuesday in Holy Week, April 19:

Wednesday in Holy Week, April 20:

Maundy Thursday, April 21:

Good Friday, April 22:

Holy Saturday, April 23:

Easter Sunday, April 24:

So we’re a week into Lent now, and I am glad to know what my lenten disciplines are.

First, I’m leading/facilitating the annual Lenten Retreat for my Order.  This happens entirely online, and I’m hoping it will be a good time for connection and community for us.

And second, I’m reading a poem every day.  This one came to me Sunday night, after I read something amazing and realized how much I need beauty to feed my soul.  So this Lent I’m reading poetry.  It works well with such a late Lent, when there’s so much springtime awesomeness to celebrate before we get to Easter.  Intentional beauty.  Every day.  In poem form.  Lenten discipline couldn’t get much awesomer than that, could it?

On Sunday, I read Hound of Heaven, by Francis Thompson.  It is a breathtaking 182-line poem that begins like this…

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears

On Monday, I was idly “flipping through” a T.S. Eliot collection on my Kindle and thoroughly enjoyed The Hippopotamus.  At first, I thought it odd to compare a hippo to the Church, but I happily went along for the ride… all the way up to the final stanza, which is the most scathing indictment of the Church (in this world) I’ve ever encountered.  I commented on twitter last night that any one of us hippos, taken individually, is beautiful.  But as the Church, somehow the worst of us comes out… and boy, is Eliot aware of it!

I haven’t yet decided what I’ll read tonight, but I’ve got some good stuff on my Kindle.  Poets and/or works that are On My List include [Updated with your suggestions!)

• Eliot’s The Waste Land
• Thomas Traherne
• Sara Teasdale
• Heinrich Heine
• the Song of Songs
• perhaps a psalm or two
• maybe the descriptions of leviathan and behemoth from Job
• Rainier Marie Rilke
• Hafez and Rumi

And your suggestions…

• Eliot’s Ash Wednesday, Four Quartets, and Ariel poems
• Gerard Manley Hopkins, particularly God’s Grandeur (multiple recommendations)
• Les Murray
• Scott Cairns
• Mary Oliver, particularly Thirst (multiple recommendations)
• H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), particularly Trilogy
• Ann Weems
• John Donne
• Nikki Giovanni  (Ooh! She’s a professor at Virginia Tech! This moves her up to the top of my list!  GO HOKIES!!!)
• Pablo Neruda
• Christina Rossetti
• Wisdom of Solomon
• Emily Dickinson
• Edna St. Vincent Millay
• Wendell Berry
• Robert Nichols, Farewell

So this post is here to solicit ideas from you! My only qualifier is that there has to be some connection to the divine or to the spiritual life.  This isn’t hard to find, and I’m comfortable stretching to find it.

So, Tumblr, what poems or poets do you recommend?

P.S. If you enjoy reading poetry, a dear friend has some chapbooks available for Kindle.  Not that I would ever be blatantly self-promoting or anything.

Lent is right around the corner.  It’s going to be a late Easter this year, with Ash Wednesday falling on March 9.  Undercover Nun has tried not to think about it too much.  So far, 2011 has been filled with a lot of rotten stuff, and I just haven’t been ready to think about the 40-day slog through the desert.  I can’t put it off too much longer, though!

Our culture generally talks about giving something up for Lent.  The tradition of self-denial runs throughout Christian history, and throughout the Hebrew scriptures as well.  By giving up caffeine or chocolate or alcohol or (God help us!) facebook, we are supposed to be taking our desires for these things and focusing them instead on God.  So whenever we crave a coffee or a cigarette or another game of Angry Birds, we remember that it’s Lent, and so we try to transform that craving into a desire for union with God.  More often, though, I suspect most of us grouse about it for a bit before distracting ourselves.  We become strangely proud of failing to live up to the standard we set for ourselves, just as we did on January 4th or 5th when we broke one more New Year’s Resolution.

Undercover Nun tends to try two things each Lent.  First, I identify a fast, something to deny myself.  Usually these aren’t physical things.  Many years I’ve attempted to fast from harsh speech, including profanity but also angry or venomous speech.  I try not to call people names or to say overly sarcastic things. 

The second thing I try to do is to take on a spiritual discipline.  This varies year by year.  One year I spent time each day practicing lectio divina with the farewell discourses in John’s gospel.  One year I committed a psalm to memory.  Several years I’ve read through a spiritual work over the course of the season.  A couple times I tried to blog each day.  The last two years, I spent the last two weeks in Lent reflecting on a traditionally physical prayer form: the stations of the cross and the mysteries of the rosary.

I’m not sure yet what my fast and my new discipline will be for this year.  I know I’ll be leading my Brothers and Sisters in our online lenten retreat, but beyond that… I’m not sure.  A couple books are calling to me from their shelf, and I do want to finish out the rosary blog posts that I didn’t complete last year.  I’m considering a fast from violent words in language, to help transform myself into a peacemaker.  (They’re blessed, you know. Jesus said so.)

Are you ready for Lent yet?  What lenten disciplines have you tried before?  What are you planning to take on this year?

The Groundhog Day of Punxsutawney was near, and Jesus went up to Pennsylvania.  In the supermarket he found shelves filled with jellybeans, candy bunnies, marshmallow peeps, and chocolate crosses. 

Making a whip of environment-friendly Easter-basket grass, Jesus knocked them onto the floor, both the bunnies and the peeps.  He also pushed off the chocolate crosses and overturned the shelves. 

Jesus told those in the grocery store, ‘Take these pagan fertility symbols and tasty chocolate instruments of execution out of here!  Truly I tell you, IT IS NOT EVEN LENT YET!’

(Source: bible.oremus.org)